I had a good chat with another poster the other day. It made me consider the nature of crime. The word has separate legal and ethical implications.
I wonder when crime is "bad" and when it is simply illegal. Can crime be justified? If it can, should we question the law that makes the relevant act illegal?
As if this were ever a simple question to be answered here or anywhere.
The following is a true set of events, a non-hypothetical:
A man, under the influence of alcohol and crystal meth, breaks into a home about 3 in the morning. With a large kitchen knife he stabs the husband in the abdomen who came downstairs to investigate his miniature Shnauzer's barking. After crushing the dog's head under his boot, he then ties the stabbed man to a kitchen chair, grabs the man's wife who followed her husband a few minutes after he went downstairs, rapes her, sodomizes her, slits her throat in front of her barely conscious husband. He leaves the room to search the house for valuables, returns with the 11 year old daughter who had been hiding in her bedroom closet, in front of her father, rapes her, sodomizes her, and slits her throat with that same kitchen knife, stabs the father in the abdomen again, leaving him to bleed out as he smiles at him and walks out the front door.
About an hour later, a neighbor returning from a late shift at the firehouse he worked at, notices the open front door, enters the house shouting Hello, but receives no response. He starts checking around the house and enters the kitchen where all of this happened. He calls 911, checks for signs of life, places pressure on the husband/father's two wounds to staunch the bleeding. Police and EMTs arrive, take over, save the man's life, stabilizing him, giving him plasma, and they take him to an ER. Both the mother and daughter had bled out and were dead. The victim remains unconscious for three days, upon waking describes the assailant to the police who recognize a description of a star tattooed over his left eye. They arrest him, and the victim identifies the suspect.
At the hearing, the defense attorney negotiates a plea deal for manslaughter, unintended homicide, temporary insanity brought about by substance abuse. The suspect is sentenced to 3 years in a state prison for the insane, a mandatory detox program, and a six year probationary release pursuant to the treatment by state employed medical personnel. He spends 9 months institutionalized and is released "a good citizen" who completed the detox to the satisfaction of medical personnel, who noted his good behavior while institutionalized to the probation board.
Three weeks later, the victim caught up with the perpetrator, shot him first in both knees, then both elbows, and while he was lying on the sidewalk, the victim started carving him up with a large hunting knife, pulled out his abdominal organs with his hands, wrapping his intestines around the neck and head of his former assailant while he still lived and screamed. He smiled at his former assailant and now victim as he shot him and sliced him up, laughed loudly as he gutted him. He sat down next to his former assailant, quietly laughing until police arrived, calmly surrendered himself. He was arrested for Murder One, intentional homicide, torture, assault and vigilantism. No question the avenging husband/father broke the law. The hearing judge declared his actions a justified homicide, acquitted this poor man, who committed suicide the next day.
I went to grammar school with that 11 year old girl. Knew her from kindergarten, until I attended her funeral. This case made me decide to pursue a police career.
You can play with hypotheticals all you want, and you will accomplish nothing. The things people do to each other is all too often, beyond belief. The reasons, often never to be understood. If there are reasons.
More than 2,000 children went missing today in this country. More than 2,000 children go missing every day in this country. More than 1/2 a million children every year. Do something real with your time, contribute to resolving this issue. The FBI claims less than a 1/2 dozen missing children everyday are taken by strangers.
THE FBI is FOS.
